InvestBulgaria Agency is organizing today in the city of Sunnyvale (in the Silicon Valley), the state of California, an international business and investment forum within the framework of the project “Establishment of Bulgaria as a successful investment destination” under the Operational Program “Innovations and Competitiveness” 2014-2020. The event focuses on the Outsourcing and Information Technology (IT) sectors and is part of a roadshow ending on December 8 in Portland, Oregon.
At the beginning of the conference, the executive director of IBA Bogdan Bogdanov will address the participants and present the institution he leads, as well as Bulgaria as an investment destination.
During the first panel, the keynote speaker will be Ryan Fisher – former Vice President of Bank of America at its headquarters in Charlotte, North Carolina, who currently works in Bulgaria as the CEO of Hill City Global Sofia. He will familiarize the audience with the Bulgarian business and startup environment from the point of view of American business – location, advantages, mixed capital, underserved regions, access to financing, market access to the EU and Asia.
Viktor Manev – licensed management consultant (CMS), Co-founder and Partner of IMPETUS Capital, will present financing opportunities for American startups in Europe, advantages and opportunities for additional rounds of financing for startup companies and for access to the global markets across Europe and Bulgaria.
Zdravko Zdravkov and Dimitar Mitkov – Founders of Out2Bound, a leading Bulgarian company providing sales and product support services to American startups in Europe, which was recently acquired by the American Marketstar. They will explain how a US startup can develop a global network for product sales and support, and present the opportunities Bulgaria offers for sales to US startups and small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
The second panel will be dedicated to practical business guidelines for startups in Bulgaria. The leading speaker will be Ivan Mihailov – CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Bulgaria (AmCham) and former CEO of VISTEON Automotive, former regional director at Johnson Controls, member on the board of “Automotive Cluster Bulgaria” and member of the Board of Trustees of Technical University – Sofia. Mihailov will talk about the conditions and favorable business environment in Bulgaria and Europe for American SMEs and start-ups.
The lecture of Nedyalko Dervenkov – Executive Director of the Bulgarian Startup Association (BESCO) will be related to the IT sector and the startup community in Bulgaria, and more specifically the experience with foreign startups.
Omurtag Petkov – a partner in the law firm “Jingov, Guginski, Kyuchukov and Velichkov” (DGKV), with legal practice in the EU and the USA, a member of the New York Bar Association, will introduce the audience to the regulation in the field of digital flows between the EU and the USA, with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and data protection, corporate and tax law, digital law, legal aid for US start-ups and scale-ups in Europe.
“Costs of doing business in Bulgaria as a European center, costs for office and staff, ease of setting up a business” is a topic that will be developed by Gergana Aneva – CEO and Managing Director at Rud Pedersen Bulgaria, former Director at the State Agency “Electronic Government”.
Borislav Slavchov – CEO of the American-Bulgarian Center for Innovation and Technology Transfer, ABC Innovations; a Horizon 2020 expert, will give a lecture related to EU R&D grants available to US startups for innovation and growth in Europe.
The delegation from Bulgaria also includes the Deputy Mayor of Sofia for “Finance and Healthcare” Doncho Barbalov, the Deputy Mayor of Plovdiv for “Education, Business Development and European Policies” Stefan Stoyanov, the General Director of BTA Kiril Valchev.
The forum will conclude with a discussion panel.
Yesterday, the Bulgarian delegation visited the Plug and Play Tech Center in Sunnyvale, which connects the largest corporations with the best startups in the world through industry-focused accelerator programs in Silicon Valley and beyond.
The second IBA conference, which will focus on the Electronics and Information Technology sectors, will be held on December 8 in Portland, Oregon.
